CHAPTER XIII
TOURTELLE ADMITS
"Nonsense," replied Tourtelle, with remarkable calmness, after what must have been a desperate effort at self-control. "Nothing of the kind. I drew the original picture and I don't know the first thing about telegraphy."
"But it's here," Lieut. Osborne insisted. "I've had a course in wireless and can read the code like a book. Let me read some of it to you--'h-e-f-c-k-a-w-r-t-m-c-a-a-b-l'--and so on, all around every one of these cubes."
"Is that so?" exclaimed the patient, rising slightly on his remaining elbow, but falling back. "Let me see it. I never noticed that. Bickett must have put one over on me if you're right. Bickett was the student who tattooed the picture on my arm."
"Where was that tattooing done?" asked Lieut. Osborne.
"In our room in Montreal," replied Tourtelle, without hesitation. "He and I roomed together and attended art school."
"You're sure it wasn't in a laboratory of a hospital in Toronto?" was the inquisitor's next query.
This was too much for the bedridden "second looie." He opened his mouth as if to speak, but his jaw dropped and remained in its lowered position half a minute as if paralyzed. At last, however, he managed to find his voice again, but it came with a succession of stammers.
"Wh--wh--why," he said, with a brave enough effort to transform confusion into astonishment. "Wh--wh--what do you mean? I--I don't understand you. You talk like a sphinx. I hope you're not questioning my word. I can't understand what your motive can be. But maybe you're making sport of me. If I told you that I was born in--in New Brunswick, would you try to make out it was in Saskatchewan?"